Your walk back to the pier your ship is at is completely silent.
The fortune teller hadn't awoken for a while, but from the way she was still breathing you assumed that she was still alive, merely exhausted from her fortune telling, so you had left your shawl draped around her shoulders, tucking her into it before you had exited the shack and made your way back.
You stop for a while to stand at the end of the docks, overlooking the ocean as the waves lap against the stone. Looking into the watery depths, you frown, the water shifts and roils beneath you, and for a second you see someone staring back at you as the surface of the black water ripples, hair made of sea foam, eyes dark like the bottomless depths of the ocean where no light ever reaches. You blink in confusion, lean further to look more closely, but before you can catch a clearer glimpse the water swirls and another wave crests; and the image is gone.
"Looking for one of the souls of the dead, dearie?"
You turn around to see an old woman standing there, a kind smile on her face that make her wrinkles crease. She has a basket of sweet, vibrantly colored fruits tucked under one arm and you frown, shake your head slowly. "No... I was just looking. What do you mean, souls of the dead?"
"Well, what you're standing next to right now is a shrine set up in the sea goddess' name." You glance over to your side and sure enough, there's a small structure set up there. Squatting down to look at the interior more clearly, there are knotted ropes hanging from the sides of the shrine, and you run your finger along the rough material thoughtfully. "What are these?"
"Knots from a ship's rigging, to pray for a smooth journey and godspeed." The elderly woman answers you, shuffling next to you. She holds out the basket and drops one fruit at a time silently into the dark water, each one making a soft splash and you tilt your head, watching the waves carry the fruits away from the harbor. "What are you doing?"
"This is where land meets the sea." The elderly woman says quietly as the last fruit, a bright yellow mango, falls from her hands and into the water with a splash. "Where people used to light lanterns and push them into the sea, to guide the spirits of the dead home, until a ship caught aflame when the waves pushed one too close to it. Now people just light candles." You look down to see burnt out stubs of wax at your feet, each for a person lost to the waves. "Where people make offerings to the sea goddess, for whatever reason they might have."
The fortune teller's words come back to you. "As if human offerings such as fruit or even gold would be of anything of worth to a god. They have no need for it." You find yourself repeating under your breath, but the old woman appears to hear it and shakes her head.
"Offerings have never about giving the gods something they need." She says quietly, looking out over the sea, eyes following yours, to the line where the black sea swallows the night - or is it the other way around? "The essence of it has always been giving up," your eyes flicker to her, "laying down something precious to you in hopes of being able to reach something dearer to your heart. It is proof of your devotion, an offering of your longing, a manifestation of the true desires of your human heart."
You stay silent for a moment, listening to the sounds of the waves crash against the stone wharf. "A manifestation," you repeat slowly after her, "of the true desires of the human heart."
The old woman nods, eyes fixed on the gloom before you. "The only things that I believe can move the hands of gods," she says, so soft that the swirl of water beneath you almost drown her words out, "is the human heart, because that is the one thing they neither have nor understand. Look at the forces of nature," she gestures at the sea churning beneath you with a hand, "the sea does not discriminate against who sails its waters. Whether young or old, good or bad, rich or poor, the seas drag them all beneath their waves regardless."
That's morbid, you think to yourself.
"But us humans, we pray and hope and desire so badly, and sometimes, once in a blue moon, a miracle happens." She adds on, with a longing smile. "Inexplicable things that are impossible to explain. What other way but the gods?"
You nod slowly in understanding, glancing back down the way you had come, remembering the fortune teller's eyes full of hatred and spite when she had been speaking about the gods. Who truly understands the gods, who really knows their true nature? Who knows them for who they are, and not just what they are?
They don't have names, nor do they have eternal souls... no one calls upon them for who they are, only what they are.
For some reason, you think you understand now.
"And you?" You ask softly, letting your gaze drop back to the candles at your feet, wondering just how many the seas have taken. "What is it that you desire from the sea?"
Something stirs in you, probing, and you look at the old woman curiously. She laughs, tucking her basket back under her arm. "Just my young grandson who sailed on his first voyage a year back. There was a storm, and he hasn't come back." She smiles, exhales a little shakily. "My son told me to give up hope, that he's gone, lost to sea... but I can't. I won't give up till the seas return my boy, dead or alive."
A tiny smile tugs at the corner of your lips.
"You're not losing hope." You whisper, gazing out at the sea once more. "And your desire to see him again is strong."
She makes a noise, waving you off. "He's my only grandson." She smiles warmly at you. "He is my family after all."
You turn away from her, looking down the pier to look at the where the Treasure sits on the waves, back to where your family is. "He'll come back soon." You tell her quietly. "I can't promise anything but... he will."
The old woman gasps a little, then beams at you, small tears budding up in the corners of her eyes. "Thank you, dear."
"No, thank you for talking to me tonight." You reply, bowing to her. "I'll be going now."
She waves as you begin to walk away, back to the dock the Treasure waits. "Remember the essence of an offering," she calls after you, and you hear her last words to you drifting over on the sea breeze.
"It is sacrifice."
>>>
You run into someone the second you step back aboard the Treasure.
"Chin Hae!" You startle a little, turn to see your master marching furiously over to you across the deck. His face is twisted with worry and anger, and he stops just in front of you, practically in your face. "Where have you been?" He's just shy of shouting now, and for a second you think how lucky you are that no one is out on the deck to hear him. You look at him, eyes red with lack of sleep, face drawn tight with exhaustion and weariness and your heart throbs painfully in your chest.
"- why did you sneak off the ship in the middle of the night, without anyone to accompany you, no less?" His voice starts to pitch higher and higher with barely restrained emotion, cracking a little on the end. "What if something happened to you? I went out of my mind with worry when I looked all over the ship for you and you weren't there, why, I was about to wake captain to sound the alarm, and you just stroll back onto the ship all fine and dandy, and-"
You wrap your arms around his waist and pull him close, resting your cheek on his shoulder gently, closing your eyes as you breathe in deep. The floral and herbal fragrance of him fills your lungs, and you smile quietly. Everything is just still... just quiet.
"I'm dying." You say out loud for the first time. The words feel strange on your tongue, but right, as if you already know this is a fact. "I'm... really about to die."
The only future is death. It comes as the storm approaches... on the horizon of the sea.
"What do you mean?" Your master asks, suddenly confused as his hands come up to grip your shoulders tight, urgency and desperation in his voice. "Chin Hae, where did you go?"
"The fortune teller from last time." You tell him softly, pressing your face into his shoulder as if that can hide you from all the troubles brewing on your horizon. "She said I'm going to die, Master. That all the paths set before me only lead to death. That there's no other way."
"That's bullshit." San retorts instantly through gritted teeth. "What does a voodoo fortune teller know? No one knows the future-"
"Master." You cut him off quietly, pulling away from him just a little so that you can look into his eyes, his hands still trembling at your shoulders. "It's the truth, I can feel it. She's telling the truth, and the prophecy she gave me... it's going to come to pass soon. I know it."
"How?" He asks, voice breaking. "How do you know? You can't just give up hope like this, Chin Hae. I can't, I won't. I can't just sit around, doing nothing and twiddling my thumbs while I just watch you die, can I? Even if it's hopeless, even if everything says no, I can't." A single tear of anguish spills over, rolls down his cheek. "You're one of the crew, my apprentice, our family."
You think of the old woman standing at the pier, basket of fruits in hand as she stares out to sea, waiting for her grandson to come home. The oceans are bigger than the mind can fathom, more treacherous than a den of lions, and yet she still waits, because what else can she do? Her heart refuses to settle, and now, you understand your master's pain.
"I know. And I'm sorry for all the things that I've said." You bump his hand lightly with your wooden one, and he looks down at it with wet eyes, chewing at his bottom lip. "I won't ask you to stop, but I don't want you to feel like it's your fault when the inevitable happens."
"We should tell captain." San reiterates, more insistently this time. Your eyes flick up to him urgently, mouth already opening to disagree but your master shakes your shoulders lightly. "Captain deserves to know, at least. You're his crew mate, and though it's difficult for him to show it, he cares for you and you're precious to him."
"That is exactly," You reply quietly, "why I can't tell him. There was once he thought he was going to lose me and..." you squeeze your eyes shut, trying to shake away the painful images in your mind of your captain's tears, the desperation in his sobs, and force yourself to continue. "I can't do that to him, Master."
"And you dying on him all of a sudden is supposed to make things better?" He asks incredulously, and you flinch. "Chin Hae, you can't make me believe that keeping this secret is the best thing to do. What about Wooyoung? He loves you!"
You suck in a breath, sighing. "I told him I didn't love him back." You answer, staring over your master's shoulder, quite unable to meet his eye. "His feelings will die with time, and he'll find someone else-"
"But do you?" San cuts you off sharply, and you tug at your bottom lip with your teeth, hesitant. His laugh rings in your ears, hand warm in yours and the sturdiness of his shoulder as you rest your head there. "Do I..." You whisper quietly into the air between the two of you, before you shake your head. "Does it matter? In the end, nothing will come out of it."
"Wooyoung's feelings might die over time." San affirms, and your eyes widen slightly with surprise; you'd expected him to say the contrary. "But I can promise you, it won't be in this lifetime. Give him a hundred, no, maybe a thousand years." Your heart cracks. "And then those feelings will die long after he's dead. I know my best friend." He says with so much conviction that you feel tears pricking at your eyes. "He loves you specially, differently, too deeply, I'm afraid. While that might not be a wholly good thing, I can tell you this," his eyes burn into yours, "you are the first woman he's loved is his entire life, and will probably be the only woman he loves in his entire life."
"San, stop, please." You beg, holding up a hand. Your master falls silent abruptly at the sound of his name, but he doesn't look like he regrets anything he said one bit. "So what if he loves me? Nothing is going to come of it. I'm going to die, Master."
"And I don't want you to live like you're already dead." He insists, and you frown, looking up at him. "I don't want you to give up hope that you might live. Too many people, myself included," he bops you on the nose gently, even though his eyes are luminous with tears, "love you too much. If you've given up on yourself, at least don't give up for us. I'm not giving up until you're dead, Chin Hae."
You squeeze your eyes shut, fighting back tears. "Okay." His arms wrap around your shoulders, pulling you close until you're cradled against him, head resting against his shoulder. "I promise."
You've made another promise a long time ago to your captain, one that you don't think you can keep. Promises are broken all the time, sailors leaving for the sea and promising to come home, a promise to a husband or wife to love the other forever, but this promise, you think, you can keep.
San pulls away, wipes the tears from your eyes and sniffles down at you. "So what about captain?" He asks, and you sigh, swallowing the lump in your throat.
"I'll... I'll tell him." You say, gripping the fabric of your shirt tight. "Not now, though. It's right after Yunho's near death experience and captain is still shaken. He hates feeling helpless, and if I told him now..." Your voice trails off.
San sighs.
"I feel like there will never be a 'right' time for something like this." He brushes the dirt from your shoulders, before one of his hands drop down to hold yours tight. "And I hate to say that I agree, but you're right. Please just... make sure he knows."
"I will." You say, before you drop his hand and turn back towards the sick bay. "Come on, let's get to bed. I'm tired from my little late night escapades and I'm sure you are too from looking for me."
You hear San's laugh for the first time in a long while. "That's because you're such a hassle to look after." He pinches your cheek as he falls into step beside you. "And I want to keep looking after you forever, so you can't give up, alright?"
You nod, trying to ignore the tears pooling at the corner of your eyes. "I'm going to annoy you as long as I can."
Later, when the two of you are in the darkness of the sick bay and you're fumbling about for your pillow, you hear a soft 'scoot over' and you do. A few seconds later, San slides into the sheets next to you and pokes you on the nose.
"Stuffed animals make people feel better." He whispers to you, even though the room is empty save for the sound of the waves lapping against the hull of the ship. "I'm going to be yours tonight, so just hug me all you want."
You look at him for a second, a dark shape outlined against the faint light coming from the potholes, and trace his face with your eyes, committing every feature to memory. Then you smile, open your arms wide and wrap them around him. "You're just doing this for free hugs, aren't you?"
"I've been discovered." San gasps in mock horror, before one of his hands come up to card gently through your hair. "Go to sleep. We'll face tomorrow when it comes together."
"Okay." You say softly, eyelids already heavy as you snuggle against his warmth. "Together."
"Together." He repeats after you, and the two of you drift into sleep as the rocking of the ship lulls the two of you into dreamland.
>>>
You're woken the next morning by a commotion outside the ship.
"What's going on?" You ask blearily, sitting up in your bed. The noise is raucous, awfully loud. Your master's face is pressed to a pothole, hair still mussed from sleep - he must have awoken not long before you - but when he turns back to you, he's wearing a wide, happy grin.
"I don't really know, but apparently a ship that's been missing for a while has come back to town." He says and something in you skips a beat. Stumbling out of bed and over to the window, you squeeze there next to your master and look out.
Another vessel, not nearly as big as the Treasure, limps into the docks next to you. It looks worse for wear, shoddy patching done on the hull and you can see that it's entire main mast has had to be replaced, but it's still here.
The gangplank lowers, and the one man fights his way off the ship, dashing down before the wood is fully set in place. He stumbles once, picks himself up, and dashes down the gangplank so fast his legs are a blur. You follow him with your eyes, heart warming, until you see who he's headed towards.
You gasp.
The old woman from yesterday is standing there with a basket of fruits in hand, frozen in shock as the young man barrels his way towards her. Just shy of crashing into her he stops, panting, before gently, with shaking hands, he wraps his arms around her, sobbing into her shoulder. The old woman bursts into tears, clinging onto him tightly as well, crying for all she's worth.
"I knew you were coming back, I just knew it..." You hear faintly over the wind as her grandson chides her for still waiting at the harbor, running gentle fingers over her wrinkles and asking if she's been sleeping well, if she's been eating well, if her back still hurts.
For the first time in a long while, you smile.